Drove from my family's place in Michigan back to Virginia today - about 550 miles. A trip like this gives me a quick snapshot of a variety of human impacts on the environment (and the irony of making the trip in my own little carbon polluter isn't lost on me):

Coal Plant in Monroe, MI on the shores of Lake Erie run by DTE Energy. DTE recently got in trouble with the EPA for not doing a better job to curb emissions at this plant. "Monroe Unit 2 released 27,230 tons of sulfur dioxide and 8,205 tons of nitrogen oxide in 2009 — tops in Michigan, according to the EPA." DTE claims it's too costly to make the upgrades EPA has asked them to make and calls the concerns of public health officials "alarmist".

There are lots of creepy, skeletal "ghost trees" along the Pennsylvania Turnpike east of Pittsburgh, for miles and miles. It's a chilling sight. Foresters quoted in various articles attribute the damage to the de-icing salt that's applied to the road in winter and the resulting runoff. Even trees far from the road, on mountaintops, seem to be affected.